BANNED

A new book highlights the erosion of free speech in our media

By Sanjiv Bhattacharya
Published: Dec 01, 2007

The mainstream media has been properly charged with cowardice for not challenging the Bush administration about the war. Its timidity, however, is a more general malaise extending well beyond the issue of WMDs. In Killed Cartoons: Casualties from the War on Free Expression, editor David Wallis brings together almost 100 illustrations that were nixed by major magazines and newspapers. They span subjects as diverse as health care, 9/11, the Pope and the wave of terror that followed the Danish cartoons about the prophet Mohammed. And they are remarkable, not only for the sheer scale of silent censorship in this country, but also for just how innocuous many of the cartoons are.
cartoon
Take this one for instance, banned by the Los Angeles Times Magazine in 2002. Canadian artist Anita Kunz was specifically commissioned to illustrate an article entitled “American Excess” and yet the editors deemed the sight of a fat Statue of Liberty too provocative for a country still gripped by a post 9/11 patriotic fever.

“Twenty-five, thirty years ago, it was no problem doing controversial imagery,” says Kunz. “I could make George W. Bush look really mean and I didn’t think twice about it. With the son, today, it’s hard to get such things published.”

A free society depends on a free press. If you’ve ever suspected that censorship is an exaggerated problem in America - after all, we’re a long way from China - then let this book shake you out of complacence.

Killed Cartoons, Casualties From The War On Free Expression, by David Wallis (Norton), $15.95.

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